opped
being, and no one could tell where they went or what had really happened
to them; and it is a wonder indeed that one can do that to anything let
alone a band. If they were not youngsters, the bold Fiacuil could not
have managed them all. Or, perhaps, he too had a band, although the
record does not say so; but kill them he did, and they died that way.

Fionn saw that deed, and his blood may have been cold enough as he
watched the great robber coursing the poets as a wild dog rages in a
flock. And when his turn came, when they were all dead, and the grim,
red-handed man trod at him, Fionn may have shivered, but he would have
shown his teeth and laid roundly on the monster with his hands. Perhaps
he did that, and perhaps for that he was spared.

"Who are you?" roared the staring black-mouth with the red tongue
squirming in it like a frisky fish.

"The son of Uail, son of Baiscne," quoth hardy Fionn. And at that the
robber ceased to be a robber, the murderer disappeared, the black-rimmed
chasm packed with red fish and precipices changed to something else, and
the round eyes that had been popping out of their sockets and trying
to bite, changed also. There remained a laughing and crying and loving
servant who wanted to tie himself into knots if that would please the
son of his great captain. Fionn went home on the robber's shoulder, and
the robber gave great snorts and made great jumps and behaved like a
first-rate horse. For this same Fiacuil was the husband of Bovmall,
Fionn's aunt. He had taken to the wilds when clann-Baiscne was broken,
and he was at war with a world that had dared to kill his Chief.

CHAPTER VII

A new life for Fionn in the robber's den that was hidden in a vast cold
marsh.

A tricky place that would be, with sudden exits and even suddener
entrances, and with damp, winding, spidery places to hoard treasure in,
or to hide oneself in.

If the robber was a solitary he would, for lack of someone else,
have talked greatly to Fionn. He would have shown his weapons and
demonstrated how he used them, and with what slash he chipped his
victim, and with what slice he chopped him. He would have told why a
slash was enough for this man and why that man should be sliced. All men
are masters when one is young, and Fionn would have found knowledge here
also. He would have seen Fiacuil's great spear that had thirty rivets
of Arabian gold in its socket, and that had to be kept wrapped up and
tied down